Howard Davis 爵士简介
霍华德 · 戴维斯爵士 现任伦敦政治经济学院院长。他曾就学于牛津的曼彻斯特文法学院和莫顿学院，获历史和现代语言硕士学位；1980年，获斯坦福大学商学院管理科学硕士学位。
2003年，2004年分别担任中国银监会和证监会的国际咨询委员会委员。
1997至2003年间，曾任英国金融服务管理局主席。这个组织在1997年10月由原来的“安全与投资理事会”改名为金融服务管理局。
1995年至1997年间，还担任英格兰银行的副总裁。
1992年至1995年间，曾任英联邦工业部总负责人。
1987至1992年间，任英国审计委员会总监。
1982年至1987间，他在伦敦麦肯锡公司工作。
1985年至1986年间，他担任了英国财政部财政大臣的特殊财政顾问。在这之前，他在英国外交部和财政部工作过，还做过两年的英驻巴黎外交大使的私人秘书。
伦敦政治经济学院
英国中央银行
Alex: Sir Howard, you were previously head of the FSA and Deputy Governor of the Bank of the England, could you please begin by generally introducing the responsibilities of these two positions and the role of these two organizations in managing and regulating the UK financial system?
Howard Davies: I was deputy governor for the bank from 1995 to 1997. At that time the Bank of England was responsible both for monetary policy and for supervising the banking system. In 1997 the government made a change and decided to set up a single regulator for the UK , which is called the Financial Service Authority. I became the first chairman and the Chief Executive. So I took the Bank’s supervisory staff and merged them with 8 other agencies, which were regulating securities, investment management and insurance. So for the next 6 years I was responsible for the whole financial sector, for the equivalent in China of the CBRC, CSRC and CIRC, but in one agency.
Alex: Ok. So how about the purpose of separation of functions? For example I know in China there is a Central Bank and the other is CBRC. One is for the financial policies or monetary policies and the other is for the regulation of the daily workings of the banking system.
Howard Davies: Well, as far as the difference, if you compare China with United Kingdom you will find that the role of the Central Bank is quite similar. In that they are both responsible for monetary policy, for interest rates in particular and so the Bank of England and the PBOC functions are reasonably comparable. In the case of regulation, China has three agencies, CBRC, CSRC and CIRC, to regulate the three different parts of the financial market, while the UK has one agency in the FSA. The reason the UK just has one agency was because in the UK the financial markets have become closely interlinked. We have banks that own insurance companies, we have insurance companies that own banks and we have banks that deal in the securities markets, and over time our market has become more interlinked. While, up to now, in China the banking sector has been legally separated from insurance market and from the securities markets. There are legal divisions between the three in China .
Alex: Due to risk-avoidance?
Howard Davies: Well, I think the Chinese government’s view has been to try to promote the development of each sector, and their separate development. Now that is also typical in other countries up to a certain point of development. If you look at the Indian market you will see a similar kind of structure but if you look at the UK market or the German market or the Japanese market you will see the things now come together and so I think it is likely in China that there will be an evolution towards financial institutions that cover a range of different financial products. When that happens then you have to look at your regulation. At the moment in China the sectors or sub-sectors of the financial sector are still quite separated.
Alex: Ok. It is also a kind of risk avoidance. It is my personal view that you need to avoid some risks coming from inadequate expertise of young governmental regulatory organizations, also try to avoid some cooperation risk maybe. The other question is China’s rapid economic development offers tremendous opportunities and challenges, from your perspective what are the key factors for China ’s continuing and sustainable economic development. Any specific risks that you think China needs to avoid?
Howard Davies: Well, I think there are two key priorities at the moment. The first is to maintain progress towards opening up the market. China has made commitments within the WTO framework and I think it is important for international confidence that those commitments should be maintained and that means carrying on with the IPOs of the major banks and bringing greater competition into the financial sector. The second point is that China needs to find a way of developing the capital markets more quickly, because if you look at the Chinese financial sector compared to other developing countries you will find that the Chinese financial system is still very heavily dominated by the banks. If you compare China with India you can find that India’s capital markets are much better developed than in China . The problem with a system which relies excessively on the banks is, of course, that all the financial risks are concentrated in one place and the banks have to do too much. They have to provide a home for savings of ordinary people, they have to provide the lion’s share of corporate finance, they have to do all of the credit appraisals of companies. They have a heavy burden. In a more developed market the banks are assisted by the capital market, particularly by the bond market. They say that companies have bank finance for short-term development and they have long term bond finance for their investment. The capital market then takes a share in credit appraisal. If companies are in trouble then bond price will start to fall, and the banks can then see the problems arising in advance. At the moment everything is very internalized in the banking system, with a heavy burden being placed on banks. The share at the moment of both the equity market and bond market in the provision of finance in China is very small. To me, that is the key development that the Chinese authority should focus on.
Alex: Any risks should be avoided? You just mentioned IPO of banks as a vehicle here. I know there are already quite large amount of IPO.
Howard Davies: Well, the banks have beenreducing the proportion of NPLs by two main methods. One by capital put into the banks by the government. Secondly by taking some of the NPLs off the balance sheet into asset management companies, which then try to recover on the NPLs. So the NPL position of the banks has been improving, but the important thing is to make sure that you don’t put new NPLs on banks books. At the moment one of the risks is that the property market is very buoyant, with significant investment on land development. I think the Chinese authorities are rightly concerned that this situation could produce a new stock of NPLs and I guess that is one reason why the government has been tightening monetary policy, shake the industry up to try to prick any speculative bubble.
